Larry Steele

Created by Will ElyPseudonym of Will Georgi. Other psedonyms include John William Ely

One of DC Comic‘s first gumshoes, making his debut in issue number five of the seminal Detective Comics, strapping young LARRY STEELE was a rookie private eye, a clean cut man about town from a “good family,” still learning the ropes of his chosen profession, although he soon devolved into a more typical shamus for the era, occasionally engaging but mostly blandly generic.

His family ties are downplayed after the first few story arcs, and he moves from Los Angeles to New York. In some adventures he’s portrayed him, perhaps unintentionally, as a overly polished, ascot-wearing dweeb; others make him out to be a mildly tough private dick. Sometimes he works with the Feds; sometimes he’s flying solo. Secretaries come and go. Whatever. Continuity in comic books of that era — especially back-up features — was always more of a theory than a practice.

Larry smokes a pipe, he carries a gun in a shoulder holster, he dresses well, he flirts with attractive females. Several of his early cases stretched out over several issues, which was potentially promising, but few of his adventures — or even the art work — are particularly memorable, unless you count the preponderance of characters, male and female, sporting widow’s peaks.

In Detective Comics #33, he gets a new secretary, Brenda Darling, a stand-up dame who knows how to handle a gun, at one point shooting a gun out of a killer’s hand. Maybe they should have dumped Larry, and given Brenda her own series.

Larry seems to have been created by Will Georgi, who also handled the art chores in Larry’s early appearances, but he was written and drawn by numerous people over his 48-issue run. At one point he was written and drawn by Ken Ernst, who went on to a successful 43-year run on the Mary Worth comic strip.